Scenario: One customer exported some goods to Thailand. After the plane loaded with the goods took off, it is found that the goods was sent to the wrong destination. How should we handle this? It is unrealistic to fly the plane back, so in no time we contacted the agent in Thailand to call for help.
The Thailand agent proposes two choices:
1. After the goods arrive at the airport, we follow the normal procedure to finish the import first and then export the cargo to Beijing. By this means, we have to pay 10% of normal customs duties plus other import and export handling charges. In addition to that, this method only works under the condition that the consignee in Thailand agrees to cooperate.
2. We ask the airline’s Beijing office to send CCA to their Thailand office and ask them to send the goods back to Beijing directly. In this way, only air freight will be involved. (However, the freight will be charged on TACT basis).
With easy compare, we decided to use the second option which is obviously better than the first one, in terms of time and money saving.
With all-out efforts, the airliner was finally coming back with our goods. But they planed to return our goods with original documents, which will bring out another problem. According to the regulations of Chinese Customs, the same MAWB number can not be used to declare both export and import. We tried to require the airline company to change the number but failed, so we had no choice but to adopt the first option.
Analysis: Cargo sending-back caused by wrong sending is common in the international business. But when it happens to import goods from overseas to China, things would be much easier, problem can even be solved without the help of airline. China customs has a regulation saying that Should the cargo sending-back application be sent to the customs office before the official customs declaration, the cargo can be returned to origin with only some necessary documents, no need to pay any duties or taxes. But we have pay attention to one point: when Customs office approves the goods to leave the frontier, the goods have to comply with the ordinary export procedures. The only difference lies in the customs declaration document for export which reads outright sending-back and no need to collect foreign currency or cancel after verification. Of course, there is also no export rebates as well.
The outright cargo sending-back policy is designed to solve the problem of cargo return in foreign trade and facilitates the buyer and the seller very much. Of course, we should have an in-depth understanding about the concept of outright cargo sending-back.
Outright cargo sending-back refers to the return of cargo that has entered the destination country but hasn’t been released by the destination country’s customs office. The shipper or the consignee or the carrier or its agent can submit applications to the destination customs to send whole or partial goods back to the origin, sometimes the destination customs can also require to send back the cargo directly according to their country’s customs regulations. The above mentioned case is just one of the examples of outright cargo sending-back.
What is worthy mentioned is that the application has to be submitted before the Customs clearance. If the Customs has levied the duty & vat and release the goods, you can only apply to send the goods out of the country following the procedures of normal cargo return.
Goods return usually involves tariff rebates. There was a seller whose cargo had been released by destination Customs, but he couldn’t offer the necessary documents for quarantine to move on, this made the buyer couldn’t use the goods on time. It’s getting nearer and nearer to his cargo’s expiring date, so the seller chose to send back goods back to the origin, which gave rise to the problem of tariff and value-added tax refund. According to related customs statutes, if the cargo has to be returned to the origin due to problems of quality or specification, although the duty/tax have been levied, the duty/tax payer can apply for duty/tax refund within a year from the day on which duty/tax is paid, but they need to give formal written explanations to the Customs office and offer original proof of payment and relevant documents.
However, experienced persons all know that in practice it is almost an impossible mission to take duty/tax back from national treasury.